The rapid development of artificial intelligence has generated significant legal challenges regarding the protection of image, voice, and identity rights. Traditionally, these elements were mainly protected as part of fundamental rights connected to honor, privacy, and personal identity. However, technological advances — especially generative AI — now allow the recreation of highly realistic synthetic images and voices, transforming these personal attributes into assets with substantial economic and commercial value.
One of the main concerns today is the growing capacity of artificial intelligence systems to imitate real individuals through deepfakes, voice cloning, and digitally generated content. As a result, the line between authentic and artificial content has become increasingly difficult to distinguish which creates legal uncertainty because traditional legal mechanisms are often insufficient to address unauthorized commercial exploitation or manipulation of a person’s identity through AI technologies.
In the United States, one of the most important legal references in this field is the “Right of Publicity,” a doctrine developed mainly through state legislation and case law. Unlike systems that only protect image rights from a moral perspective, the Right of Publicity recognizes that a person’s image, name, voice, appearance, and other distinctive traits possess independent economic value. Therefore, individuals have the exclusive right to commercially exploit these elements.
Important judicial precedents helped shape this doctrine, for example, In Haelan Laboratories, Inc. v. Topps Chewing Gum, Inc., courts recognized that athletes’ identities could have autonomous commercial value through exclusive licensing agreements; while in Midler v. Ford Motor Co., protection was extended to voice imitation when a singer’s distinctive voice was deliberately imitated for commercial purposes without authorization.
Peru does not currently have a legal figure equivalent to the Right of Publicity, nevertheless, certain indirect protections exist across different branches of law. For example, Andean Community Decision 486 prevents the registration of trademarks that improperly use the name, image, or identity of another person without authorization, especially when the person is publicly recognized. Likewise, Peruvian data protection legislation considers biometric data — including facial images and voice data — to be sensitive personal data, meaning their collection and processing generally require prior informed consent.
This issue becomes even more relevant considering that AI systems are frequently trained using enormous quantities of biometric information collected from digital platforms, worries that translated in reality in cases such as Clearview AI years ago that demonstrated the risks associated with mass facial data collection without proper authorization. Similar concerns have also appeared in Peru regarding the improper collection of biometric information.
At the criminal level, Peru has recently incorporated references to artificial intelligence and deepfakes into legislation concerning crimes such as child pornography and defamation (Legislative Decree No. 32314). These reforms reflect growing concern over the use of synthetic content to deceive the public, damage reputations, or affect personal integrity.
Additionally, the post mortem use of image and voice is a particularly complex issue and although Peruvian civil law requires authorization from relatives for the use of a deceased person’s image or voice, the regulation remains limited and unclear regarding digital recreations generated through artificial intelligence. This creates uncertainty about who may authorize such uses and under what conditions, moreover in an industry vulnerable such those of the performative artis. In this regard, although Peru possesses a specialized legislation (Law No. 28131, Law for the Performative Artist), it does not develop provisions in protection against these threats.
In contrast, countries such as Mexico have already adopted more modern reforms specifically regulating AI-generated reproductions of artists’ voices and images. In May 2026, Mexico enacted a decree amending the Federal Labor Law (Ley Federal del Trabajo) and the Federal Copyright Law (Ley Federal del Derecho de Autor) in order to protect performers and artists against unauthorized voice cloning and synthetic reproductions generated through artificial intelligence technologies, requiring now the express authorization for the use of AI-generated reproductions, expressly recognizing the economic rights involved.
Ultimately, the Peruvian legal framework still approaches these issues in a fragmented manner. While certain protections exist through privacy, data protection, industrial property, and constitutional law, Peru still lacks comprehensive legislation capable of adequately addressing the economic and technological implications of AI-generated identity reproduction.
